Austin Strategic Mobility Plan

Move more people by investing in public transportation

• The City and Capital Metro collaborated on 20+  projects  to enhance the speed and reliability of existing bus service.
• In 2020, City of Austin voters  approved  $19 million in general obligation bonds to continue to fund the  Local Transit Enhancement Program .
• In 2020, voters also approved a proposition to dedicate a portion of the City's property tax rate to fund  Project Connect : a comprehensive transit plan including rail service, bus service, park and rides and more. 

Manage congestion by managing demand

• The City launched  GetThereATX : a one-stop-shop for info about sustainable transportation options in Austin.
•  Smart Trips Austin , a program that offers transportation resources and provides one-on-one trip-planning support, expanded its reach citywide. 
• Austin Transportation invested in a fleet of electric bicycles for staff to use for midday trips and created a program to loan the e-bikes to other City staffers during the pandemic.
• The City is working closely with  Movability  to help local employers continue to incentivize remote work after the need for social distancing ends.

Build active transportation access for all ages and abilities on sidewalk, bicycle, and urban trail systems

• Programs funded by the  2016 Mobility Bond  ($137 million) and  Proposition G  of the  2018 Bond  ($37 million) continue to deliver miles of new active transportation projects and make improvements to existing infrastructure.
• In 2020 City of Austin voters approved  Proposition B , which includes $220 million in general obligation bonds to fund more sidewalk, bikeway and urban trail projects.

Connect people to services and opportunities for better health

• The City collaborated with Ford Mobility and Good Apple on a nine-month " Stay Home, Stay Healthy " grocery delivery pilot program to deliver healthy fresh produce and pantry staple items to those most vulnerable to food insecurity in Austin during the the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Mobility departments joined the City's  COVID-19 response  managed through the Emergency Operations Center. Staff assisted in implementing traffic control at testing and vaccine locations and continue to provide support to ongoing Personal Protective Equipment distribution events.
• The  Healthy Streets Initiative  designated several streets for activities like walking, wheelchair rolling, and bicycling. Data from this program will be used to integrate  Slow/Shared Streets  opportunities into the update of the Sidewalk, Urban Trail, and Bikeways plans.

Strategically add roadway capacity to improve travel efficiency

• In 2019, the City completed preliminary engineering reports for nine  substandard streets . In 2020, City of Austin voters approved  Proposition B , which includes $53 million in general obligation bonds to fund improvements to these streets. 
• The City began construction on Anderson Mill Road in 2020 and continues to work closely with the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) toward construction on other  Regional Mobility projects  to address congestion and enhance safety.
• City Council adopted ordinances creating a  Street Impact Fee Program  to help fund roadway capacity projects necessitated by new development.

Address affordability by linking housing and transportation investments

•  Project Connect  includes $300 million for transit-supportive anti-displacement housing strategies. An  Equity Tool  is being developed to help guide decisions about how to spend the funds. These strategies will be informed by the  Austin Strategic Housing Blueprint .
• The City's transportation review staff formalized a process to involve Capital Metro staff when a development application submitted to the City is sited on or near a street with Capital Metro service. This ensures that improvements to transit service are considered as potential mitigation for developments' impact.
• City Council adopted the  Affordability Unlocked Development Bonus Program , through which developers can receive waivers and/or modifications to development regulations in exchange for providing low- and moderate-income housing. Additional incentives are also offered for projects that are within ¼-mile of an Imagine Austin Corridor served by transit.

Right-size and manage parking supply to manage demand

• Austin Transportation (ATD) converted all street parking pay stations to a  pay-by-plate  system where users enter their license plate number at a parking kiosk to pay instead of receiving a sticker to display during their parking session.
• Following the suspension of dine-in service at restaurants due to COVID-19, ATD installed t emporary curbside customer pick-up zones  in support of local eateries transitioning to take-out and delivery-only.
• 20+ garages joined the  Affordable Parking Program , which provides affordable monthly parking passes to service and entertainment industry employees who work nights downtown.
• ATD revised street parking time limits to a uniform maximum stay time of 10 hours and linked the time spent at a parking space to a new variable,  tiered parking fee structure .
• In 2019, ATD launched  Park ATX , a mobile app that allows people to pay for parking and manage their parking session remotely. In 2020, Austin became the first city to give people the option of paying for on-street parking directly in  Google Maps .

Develop shared mobility options with data and emerging technology

• Austin BCycle was rebranded to  MetroBike  under a new management partnership between the City and Capital Metro. Plans are in motion to expand the fleet and number of stations and fully electrify the fleet.
• The City published an interactive  Shared Mobility Operations Map  displaying parking boxes for  shared mobility  devices, corrals with racks for personal bikes and scooters,  e-scooter charging stations , and more.
• The National Science Foundation  awarded a grant  to the City and the University of Texas at Austin to create a micromobility hub in the Georgian Acres Neighborhood.